Posts by cdilla

Grimsby

Inspired by Microsoft's "Chicago" project name we gave our next big project the codename "Grimsby". I still have the documentation of the time. Happy days.

Saw this a while back. I hope the NASA engineers took on board everything he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJsPvmFixU

"Zarniwoop save us"

"Zarniwoop save us"

Thank you for that little DNA reference. Made my morning.

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.

PROGRAM-ID. TUATLTUAE.

AUTHOR. DNA.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.

DISPLAY "Forty Two".

STOP RUN.

Remembering happy days trying to get HHGTTG references in my code sheets past my System Analyst. I suspect there are still some accountancy programs acredited to Zaphod Beeblebrox lubricating various government systems around the world.

Be considerate

Masks work both ways. Wearing a mask reduces your mouthbreathing detritus entering the immediate environment.

Masks reduce the risk of infection. They don't eliminate it.

The more payload is in the air the more is taken in, mask wearer or not.

Just be considerate.

So many of my favourites things wrapped up in this story.

Humour - HHGTTG: Heart of Gold and Disaster Area

Storytelling - Ray Bradbury: Golden Apples of the Sun

ScienceFi - David Brin: Sundiver

What days we live in. Sun skimming, Pandemic, Climate Change, Fools on the Hill governing the country.

The vote tally is all you need to see

As an aside it speaks volumes about the bias of most folk who post.

Rarely does a day go by without a refernce to or memory of the works of DNA brightening up the day.

42 years. My parents were right - the passing of time only accelerates as you get older.

Personally I largely agree with Mr Musk with regards his opinions of the portions of media he is referring to.

Individual hacks may or may not care about or have a relationship with every company or person they do stories on, but many do have axes to grind, and many more do care about what their boss thinks of them, and who doubts they have agendas?

Even with the "fiercely independant" new sources, the name under the tag line has to be taken into account when deciding how much salt to take along with the info in the article.

I too found my career path due to using a PDP-11 at Uni as part of a physics course (which I ditched in favour of programming soon after).

I also have one of Oscar's most excellent PDP-8 kits, a blinken fine piece of computer history.

Here

I got the Royal Mail emails telling me my Switch and Zelda would be delivered 5th-7th March, but both arrived today - one via Hermes and the other via Royal Mail.

Not that I'll have time to play for a few hours yet.

Thank you

Thank you for this article.

Lester is much missed.

The Register and the world in general is a poorer place with his passing.

Never whitelist

I never whitelist sites. There is the security aspect, but mostly it's because ads are bloody annoying.

Websites that need the income can raise a paywall - if they are worth the money to me I'll pay.

One or two sites I used to visit regularly now block on sensing an adblocker, but pretty much every site has the same information, albeit maybe rehashed by a different hack, duplicated on many others. El Reg is my favourite IT news site and has been since it started, but there are many others covering the same ground to migrate to were ads ever to become mandatory.

Lester

Great to see a link to those wonderful nosh posts by Lester and team.

Another drink to be raised to him in precisely an hour :-)

鸡爪蒂姆·库克

Tim Cook Chicken. Lol.

Beaten to the "bowl of petunias" comment not once, not twice, but three times out of just ten comments.

As was Douglas Adams, I'm a militant atheist, so I know he isn't looking down and smiling, but still, it would be nice if he were.

Now, where's my towel.

Stunning plane

When I was a lad there was a place on High Common Lane that was right at the end of the main runway at RAF Finningley (Now Robin Hood Airport) where we would try and remain standing while Vulcan's took off and roared what seemed like only a few feet above us. I always ended up on my arse. The whole-body feel of the immense power of the Vulcans was literally stunning.

Never a day...

Never a day passes in our household that isn't brightened by some reference to DNA or his work. Whether it's in reference to a piece of furniture stuck in a stairwell, missed deadline or the illusiory nature of lunchtime, a grin is had and an inward nod is made to the great man in acknowldgement of his genius.

HB DNA. If you're up there looking down on us, I know you'll be bloody annoyed, being a fully paid up member of the millitant atheists movement.

Acknowledging ignorance

I like the idea politicians acknowledge they haven't the first clue about an issue they have to make decisions on. It's just a shame they don't fess up to all of them.

It would also be nice if journalists did the same.

It's a pity ...

Sometimes the facts purveyed in good faith by enthusiastic amateurs need to be corrected or clarified, and I'm all for that, but does it have to be done in such an unpleasant way?

Calendar

The calendar in her room has a nice reference to the Anime Festival Asia meet in Singapore this weekend.

Makes a change from the usual advertising. I imagine it will have some success.

memories

I have memories of two childhoods. One of my own very happy childhood, and a second equally happy one set in Greentown Illinois courtesy of of the great Ray Bradbury.

Whilst many of his books and short stories have repeatedly passed through my reading list over the past few decades, it is Dandelion Wine that is always with me.

I first read parts of it to my son when he was six. By the time he was twelve he had read it himself many times, and so another generation began to see the world through the wonderful visionary eyes of Ray Bradbury.

My top two authors. RB and DNA. Now both gone.

educational

I didn't buy a ZX81 for it to be educational, but it was.

I had written fortran programs as part of a physics degree course but never something that would show some real time visual output. With the ZX81 and subsequent 8-bit micros I thoroughly enjoyed creating demos, games and other rpograms. Along the way I learned z80A, 6502 and 6809 assembly and machine code, something that eventually allowed me to break from my mainframe cobol career into a PC C++ career.

My kids are Nintendo generation and they just don't have the same kind of entry point I did into programming.

There's only the Grundy I didn't have at one time or another. Sad sad sad.

Have to agree that the 6809 instruction set was a joy to program with which was why my Dragon got so much of my attention.

Good to see the Ace appearing, I picked on up at an auction a couple of years after it was released. I'd used forth at uni (for controlling radio telescopes), and it was so damn fast.

Anyone remember the Enterprise? That was my dream machine, but I don't think it ever made it to mass market.

Jeff Minter

Surely at last one of Gridrunner, Matrix, AMC, Ancipital, Batalyx, Yaks Progress or may of the others should be there?

The baffling paucity of Jeff Minter titles in this list aside, it's good to see these games getting coverage still from time to time. The glasses may be a little rose tinted but I still do play these from time to time (on iPad these days) and recapture the essence of those heady days.

OK, you've convinced me

I'll buy one immediately.

Marvelous memory

Thank you for that wonderful memory. I was in my mid twenties when I played this and it's successor JSW. It is pure, distilled nostalgia to see and hear it again :-)